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An Indigenous Way of Life Threatened by Oil Sands in Canada

Ian Willms has photographed the effects of oil extraction on First Nations land in Fort McKay and Fort Chipewyan, in northern Alberta, Canada. Mr. Willms, 28, based in Toronto, is a founding member of the Boreal Collectiveand spent several months over the last three years photographing his project “As Long as the Sun Shines.” His interview with James Estrin has been edited and condensed.

By JAMES ESTRIN July 30, 2013

The New York Times

How did this project start?

When I graduated from school in 2008 I was hearing a lot about the oil sands in Canada. So I started doing research, and the more I learned, the more horrified I became.

I read a CBC article about cancer rates in indigenous communities that immediately surrounded the oil sands, and I knew right then that was exactly what I had to do. I searched pretty thoroughly for anybody who had done a proper photo story on the community, and I couldn’t find anything that was particularly in-depth.

What did you find when you got there?

I found a community that was far more developed economically than I had expected. There was a lot of infrastructure, and the homes were more modern than most First Nations communities. That has a lot to do with the proximity to the oil sands and the economic benefit that comes with that.

But the community is still struggling. First Nation reserves are still very dark and damaged places in many ways, and in other ways, they’re incredibly vibrant. So it was not as bleak as I expected it to be. If you didn’t already know that their water was basically coming off of a storm pipe of one of the largest polluting industrial projects in the world, you wouldn’t.

A lot of photographers who photograph native peoples in North America just hit and run. How did you go about capturing a fuller view?

Well, the most important thing is time. And it’s always going to be more time than anyone’s going to be willing to pay you for.

Beyond that, I think it’s a matter of becoming invested in people’s lives, because if you don’t care, they won’t. And if you fake it, people know. People aren’t stupid. If you treat them like they’re stupid, they’re never going to trust you. And so I spent a lot of time there, I made a lot of friends.

There are a lot if white journalists that go into indigenous communities in North America with a preconceived notion of what these people are like and what they need. But in truth this attitude is just a continuation of the abuse of those people.

What the first nations really need is the respect and the confidence of the rest of Canada, to tell their own stories and to manage their own communities. They need to be empowered but they don’t need others to tell them what to do.

I continually show my subjects the work that I do in these communities and ask if I am getting this right.

Tell me more about the oil sands.

There’s an oil reserve that’s located beneath Canada’s boreal forest that’s roughly the size of the state of Florida. It’s rich with oil, but the process of extracting it is incredibly energy intensive, difficult and expensive.

The process involved first clear-cutting the forest and then creating a strip mine. They dig the sandy oil out. It’s like hot asphalt. On a hot day, it’s very gooey and very much like tar.

The environmental toll is dramatic. There was a study by an NGO in Toronto, Environmental Defense, that in 2008 found that about 11 million liters of toxins were leaking into the Athabasca River every single day from several toxic-base water lakes in the oil sands region.

What’s the effect on the people?

It has brought more money into the communities than there was before. With that said, it’s really a small fraction of what they’re actually entitled to. These First Nations get really bad deals from the oil companies in order to leave their lands for oil.

A career in the oil sands may sound good to some people, but really it is the death of their culture because it’s taking the new generation to work toward a completely different way of life. And it’s a way of life that embraces the destruction of their land.

The Canadian Indian Residential School System was a cultural assimilation program that saw aboriginal children taken from their parents and forced to live in these boarding schools. Generations of children were physically and sexually abused in residential schools across Canada. The last federally operated residential school closed in 1996.

There’s a lot of grief, especially among the elders in the community, over the younger generation not taking an interest in hunting and fishing and trapping. And there’s a lot of conflict among the generation in between the youth and the elders — the generation that are in their late 20s to their 50s; the people who work in the oil sands but grew up hunting, fishing and trapping.

They are very conflicted, because they know what they’re doing. They know that they’re taking away their own land. But they do it because there’s no other option for them to make money. There’s no other way for them to feed their families. These communities are no longer able to be self sufficient off the land like they had been for thousands of years.

Read the full article and view photo slideshow here. View Ian Willms work here.

Fishing For Compliments: Chief Joseph Hatchery Opens 70 Years Late

Jack McNeel

ICTMN.COM July 22, 2013

The salmon once swam freely throughout the upper Columbia River, and plucking them from the waters represented an opportunity to benefit all the Colville Tribes by sharing the bounty.

“What a beautiful experience it was,” said Mel Taulou, an elder of the Colville Confederated Tribes, at a recent ceremony celebrating the first fish to be taken from the Chief Joseph Hatchery. He and others spoke of the sharing associated with fishing, of the exchange of fishing gear if someone was lacking something, and of sharing their catch with elders, friends and family.

“You gave freely. Everybody did. That’s the way it was,” said tribal member and longtime fisherman Lionel Orr, who sang in honor of the first fish as it was lifted from the river in the First Salmon ceremony. “That’s the way I was taught by the older fishermen.”

The salmon was then filleted, smoked, and later everyone present at the pre-opening ceremony was offered a taste of the first salmon.

About 800 people gathered near Chief Joseph Dam for the grand opening of the brand new Chief Joseph Hatchery on a rainy, overcast June 20. The water did not dampen their enthusiasm. Rather, since rain fills the rivers for salmon and is the lifeblood of the region, it was welcomed on this day in particular.

Although the day included a ribbon cutting and other opening celebrations, it was also an opportunity to honor the fishermen and their contributions to keeping this part of tribal custom alive and in passing their knowledge on to younger tribal members. The crowd gathered around tables under a huge tent to listen as representatives from tribal, state and federal agencies spoke about the history leading to this moment and what the hatchery would mean for the future.

The celebration concluded with tours of the hatchery, a full lunch featuring salmon, and the traditional ribbon cutting signifying the opening of the hatchery and completion of a promise made seven decades earlier.

The salmon’s freedom was first cut off by a series of dams that impeded their return to the spawning grounds. In the 1930s a number of dams throughout the Columbia basin were being planned, and tribes in the region were bracing themselves for the disastrous effect these constructs would have on fish runs and thus on tribal members’ lives. Four hatcheries were promised to help mitigate those effects on the Entiat, Wenatchee, Methow and Okanogan watersheds.

“Three of the four hatcheries were constructed between 1939 and 1942,” said Jim Brown, with the Washington Department of Fisheries and Game. Then came World War II. The hatchery plans were put on hold. Chief Joseph Hatchery, the fourth, had to wait. The wait is now over.

“Today’s event gives us the chance to celebrate the fulfillment of the 70-year old commitment,” Brown said at the opening. “Chief Joseph Hatchery is a tremendous accomplishment.”

The hatchery sits on 15 acres of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers property within the Colville Indian Reservation. It will be managed by the Colville Tribes under guidelines recommended by scientists as requested by Congress. It includes 40 raceways, each measuring 10 feet by 40 feet, plus three rearing ponds and three acclimation ponds, some onsite and some offsite.

“This is a modern hatchery built to the highest modern standards of science,” said Lorri Bodi of the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). “It represents 30 years or more of progress in trying to meet the commitments by the federal government to tribes and the region. It represents a major step in our efforts to get fish back into the rivers of the Northwest.”

It was a collaborative effort involving the Colville Tribe, BPA, US Army Corps of Engineers, several Public Utility Districts and the NW Power & ‘Conservation Council. Funding came from the BPA and area public utility districts, Bodi said.

Colville Tribal Chairman John Sirois, center, cuts the ribbon for the long-awaited Chief Joseph Hatchery on the Colville Reservation, June 20, 2013. He is flanked by representatives of partner groups from the federal and tribal governments. (Photo: Jack McNeel)

The $50 million hatchery will annually release up to 2.9 million chinook salmon.

“We’re going to see natural spawning of fall and summer chinook in the Okanogan River and we’re going to see spring chinook in the Okanogan basin for the first time in many, many years,” said Tom Karier from the Northwest Power & Conservation Council.

“It’s been a historic day,” said Tribal Chairman John Sirois, who was the day’s emcee. “It really touched my heart hearing stories from our elders about our history. We are salmon people. The salmon sacrifice for us in a sacred way. We also make that sacred commitment to them, to provide their water. I am so grateful, thankful and humbled by all the work that went into making this hatchery possible.”

Alaska’s heat wave breaking records, killing salmon

John Upton, Grist

Something smells fishy about a record-breaking heat wave in Alaska.

It might be the piles of dead salmon.

The Land of the Midnight Sun has been sweating, relatively speaking, through a hot and sun-soaked summer. From the AP:

Anchorage has set a record for the most consecutive days over 70 degrees during this unusually warm summer, while Fairbanks is closing in on its own seasonal heat record.

The National Weather Service said Alaska’s largest city topped out at 70 degrees at 4 p.m. Tuesday, making it the 14th straight day the thermometer read 70 or higher. That breaks a record of 13 straight days set in 2004.

In Fairbanks, temperatures Monday reached 80 or higher for the 29th day this summer.

While most of the world is getting warmer, the 49th state appeared recently to be getting colder – the temporary effect of a long-term oceanic weather pattern known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Now the unusually toasty summer is raising questions about whether climate change is heating up the state, though some are arguing the heat wave could just be an anomaly.

What isn’t being questioned is the link between the hot weather and a die-off of 1,100 king salmon. The fish were returning to a hatchery south of Petersburg to spawn when they succumbed to hot water and low oxygen levels, perhaps worsened by low tides. From a weekend report by the AP:

Alaska Department of Fish and Game sportfish biologist Doug Fleming said he found the dead fish July 18 after last week’s warm weather, when temperatures were in the 80s.

He began monitoring water levels earlier in the week when it appeared temperatures were reaching dangerous levels.

“And so, getting through till Wednesday which appeared to be the hottest day, then on Thursday I was conducting an aerial survey just to get a grip on how many fish may have been killed by the warm water, not expecting to see a large die-off but some, and I was shocked to see the numbers of fish that we lost,” he said.

What’s a GMO? And Should Washington Food Labels Warn Us About Them?

BY RACHEL BELLE on July 31, 2013

MYNorthwest.com

Good day, class. Today we’re going to learn about GMOs. Those three little letters have been in the news a lot lately, and most people don’t really know what it means. For example, today in our show prep meeting, I told the guys I was doing a story on GMOs and Ron said:

“What’s the ‘O’ stand for? Genetically Modified…O?”

Organism. Genetically Modified Oganism. It’s also called GE, Genetically Engineered.

This November, Washingtonians will vote on I-522 to decide if foods and seeds containing GMOs should be labeled at grocery and home and garden stores.

Trudy Bialic is director of public affairs for PCC Natural Markets. She wants the labeling. “Essentially all GMOs are either tolerating a pesticide or producing their own pesticide and insecticide. It’s engineered with properties that make the produce its own insecticide. You are eating a registered pesticide.”

GMOs can currently be found in some zucchini and yellow squash and sweet corn, which means they often show up in processed foods that contain corn syrup. But Trudy isn’t taking a stand on whether GMOs are good or bad. She simply wants the products labeled.

“I-522 is really about labeling,” says Trudy. “It’s not about the science. Labeling gives us transparency and it gives us, as shoppers, the ability to decide for ourselves what’s appropriate and best for us to buy and feed our families.”

But not everyone wants the labels. Dana Beiber is the spokesperson for the No on 522 campaign.

“We already have a labeling system that works perfectly,” Dana says. “For folks who want to avoid foods with GE ingredients in them, they can do so by looking for the organic label. So it’s not necessary. The other reason it’s not necessary to put a warning label on these foods is because we’ve been eating them for decades and we have overwhelming scientific research that tells us that the foods are safe.

She says farmers will either have to spend money on a new label, that’s specific to Washington state, or change the ingredients in their product.

“I think it’s consumers who are really gonna end up paying the bill for us,” Dana says. “We can expect our grocery bills to go up by hundreds of dollars per year to pay for this unnecessary labeling system.”

Trudy says 64 countries and a few other states have already passed GMO labeling laws.

“Two-thirds of Washingtonians support labeling of genetically engineered foods. There are only five corporations that are funding the opposition. Five! They’re protecting their profits. Their concern is not the right to know for all Washingtonians. We all should know what’s in our food.”

We already label products with their fat and sodium content, we list all the ingredients, so what’s the harm in alerting consumers to GMOs?

“The fat or the sodium or whether it has eggs or peanuts in it, all that’s placed on every label throughout the country. It’s also on the back of the product. It’s not a warning label on the front of the product. Make no mistake, 522 is a warning label. In fact, the proponents have said they want it to be a skull and crossbones label on the front of a package.”

The spokesperson from Yes on I-522 says they have no intention of using a skull and crossbones, just a simple couple of words.

Class dismissed.

Native American journalists tackle tough issues during July conference

Native American Journalists Associaiton President Rhonda LeValdo speaks with Dr. George Blue Spruce about the state of dentistry in Indian country. Photo/Stan Bindell

Source: Navajo-Hopi Observer

TEMPE, Ariz.-Journalists covering Indian country received training and discussed Native American issues during the 29th annual National Native Media Conference in Tempe July 18-21.

The Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) and Native Public Media sponsored the conference.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Our voices, Our stories, Our future.” The conference was designed to empower native journalists and media professionals to tell their own stories. Journalism professionals lead sessions to train native journalists to tell their stories in a professional manner.

Arizona was well represented with journalists attending from the Navajo Hopi Observer, Navajo Times, Tutuveni and KUYI radio station among many others.

The issues those in attendance focused on included violence against women, dental care and the availability of radio frequencies for Indian communities.

Deborah Parker, vice chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribe in Washington state, fought successfully to have native women included in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. The act was signed into law this past year and promises sweeping changes in the way violent offenders on tribal land are held accountable.

Parker spoke about the legislative process and media coverage of the fight to protect women in Indian country.

“This is also an opportunity to teach our young people about laws, the past and what our future looks like,” she said.

When Parker first started to look into the Violence Against Women Act, people told her that it didn’t have the steam to include native women on reservations because “they have no face here.”

“That made me angry,” she said. “I could see all these faces that were from my bloodline.”

With the help of U.S. Sen Pat Murray, D-Wash. Parker put on a news conference and spoke about the lack of prosecutions of non-Indians committing crimes against women on reservations.

“It was amazing to be that voice,” she said. “The Senate was abuzz. How could they not include Native American women?”

Parker continued to work with the National Congress of American Indians to see the bill passed with inclusion of protecting native women. She said many racist comments came out of the House of Representatives. Some congressmen doubted whether Indian governments had the ability to arrest non-Indian men.

At the beginning of the process, she said one congressman was outspoken against the inclusion of Indian women, but Parker was able to get him to change his mind. She said the way to change the minds of elected officials is to personalize the stories.

“So many children, women and men came forward with what happened to them as children, teenagers and adults,” she said.

Tribes have until 2015 to implement the law with help from the U.S. Department of Justice.

One statistic states that 88 percent of crimes against women on reservations are committed by non-Indians. She said some congressmen did not believe that statistic.

Eric Cantor, R- Va., a conservative congressman, was one of those opposed to including native women in the law. When Parker met with Cantor’s aide, she told Parker that neither she nor the congressman had met a Native American.

“There are a lot in congress who don’t understand us politically, spiritually and traditionally,” she said.

Parker said she knows of several hundred women who have been murdered on reservations without any justice.

Parker said the media was a big help in covering the Violence Against Women Act.

Another topic at the conference was the crisis in rural America, including on reservations, where there are no oral health providers. Lack of dental services and dental problems can cause disease and sometimes death.

Indian Health Service’s dental provider vacancies average 20-30 percent.

Alaska natives have offered one solution by creating the Dental Health Aide Therapist program. Tribes could replicate the program in other parts of the country.

The Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health at A.T. Still University in Mesa recently graduated six American Indians to help fill the need.

Dr. George Blue Spruce, the first native dentist in Arizona, said the dental problem also includes a lack of Native American dentists.

Spruce, 82, said until Native Americans can go to a native dentist, Indian self-determination remains a myth.

The others leading this session included Dr. Todd Hartsfield, DDS faculty at A.T. Still; Maxine Brings Him Back-Janis, faculty at Northern Arizona University; Connie Murat, dental aide therapist at Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation and Yvette Joseph, project manager at Kaufman and Associates. W.K. Kellogg Foundation sponsored the dental session.

Geoffrey Blackwell, chief of the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) Office of Native Affairs and Policy, announced that those seeking non-commercial radio stations on reservations can apply for low frequency FM radio stations between Oct. 15 and Oct. 29.

President Barack Obama recently signed the Local Community Radio Act, which mandates expansion of low power FM radio stations that provide listening areas of three to 10 miles.

Since 2000, the government has licensed more than 800 low power FM stations.

A session also took place on the importance of bringing more broadband services to reservations. Those leading this session included Loris Taylor from Native Public Media; Traci Morris from Homaholta Consulting, Michael Copps, from the FCC and Blackwell.

Taylor, a member of the Hopi Tribe, said in order for native radio stations to be successful they need champions on the inside who are non-Indians. She pointed to Coppes as one such champion.

Coppes said that better broadband means more money creating more jobs, education and health care. He said that broadband services throughout the U.S. are not as good as they should be.

“It’s not just Native Americans. Everybody in the country is being held back, especially in the rural villages. We need a sense of mission,” he said.

Blackwell said broadband is as important as roads and water. He said the FCC and tribes need to work together on bringing more broadband services to Indian country.

Blackwell noted that local radio stations continue to provide life saving services such as announcing when tornadoes will hit.

“Lives can be on the line when you can’t get a signal,” he said.

Blackwell said his office works with 50 Indian tribes at any given time. He hopes that his office will soon announce that there will be consultations and trainings to bring more broadband to Indian country this coming fiscal year.

Tim Giago was one of the founders of NAJA and one of the many elder journalists who received recognition during the conference. He founded the Lakota Times in 1981 when the Pine Ridge Reservation was located in the poorest county in America.

Giago, 80, had his office firebombed, his office windows shot out and his life threatened, but he continued publishing until he sold the paper in 1998.

Giago urged the young journalists not to get discouraged. He also offered them some advice.

“You can do a thousand good things, but if you do one bad thing that is what will be remembered,” he said.

OK Casino Closes Suddenly, Leaving Workers Without Paychecks

About 60 employees of the Silver Buffalo Casino say they were supposed to get paychecks last Friday. But they haven't gotten those checks. — About 60 employees of the Silver Buffalo Casino say they were supposed to get paychecks last Friday. But they haven’t gotten those checks.

By Steve Shaw, News9.com

ANADARKO, Oklahoma – A power struggle between factions of the Apache Indian Tribe of Oklahoma has spilled into the operation of an Anadarko Casino operated by the Tribe.

About 60 employees of the Silver Buffalo Casino say they were supposed to get paychecks last Friday. But they haven’t gotten those checks.

They say the casino gave them each $200 in cash Monday, but that doesn’t come close to covering what is owed to them.

Donnie Cabannis says he’s chairman of Oklahoma’s Apache Tribe, and that the casino workers are getting stiffed because his rivals have stolen money that was intended for them.

“There’s a lot of corruption going on in our casinos now, and we need to take control of that,” he said Tuesday.

However, Tribal Administrator Ernest Redbird says Cabannis is no longer the Chairman. And he says Cabannis’ claim that money has been stolen is not true.

“I think um there’s been miscommunication of money being transferred from one bank to another,” he said.

Late Tuesday, we were told those casino workers would finally get their paychecks at 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.

Confessions of a climate change denier

Mural by the artist Bansky along Regent’s Canal in London. Photo: Flickr/Matt Brown

By Yotam Maron, Waging Nonviolence

I suppose it wasn’t really until I was standing on the west side of Hoboken, N.J., in water and oil up to my thigh, that climate change really made sense. And it wasn’t until I was out organizing on New York City’s outer beaches after Hurricane Sandy that I understood my sluggishness on climate justice was nothing short of climate change denial.

It seems like everywhere we turn, we’re being fed the same old climate Armageddon story. You’ve heard it, I’m sure: If we continue to be dependent on fossil fuels, hundreds of gigatons of CO2 will continue to pour into the atmosphere, the temperature will rise above 2 degrees Celsius, and we’re done. There will be a biblical cocktail of hurricanes, floods, famines, wars. It will be terrifying, awful, epic and, yes, as far as any reputable scientist is concerned, those projections are for real.I call this narrative the Armageddon Complex, and my own denial was a product of it. I spun all sorts of stories to keep the climate crisis out of my life, ranging anywhere from “it can’t be that bad” to “if it is that bad, there’s nothing I can do about it,” and “it’s not my role. That’s for climate activists; I’m a different kind of activist.”

I did not act alone, but rather as part of a culture of climate denial among activists, who are already plagued by a tendency to see our work as separate issues vying for attention. The Armageddon Complex tells us that climate activism is about some far-off date, not about the pressing and time-sensitive needs that people around us experience in their day-to-day struggles. It pounds into us the idea that the crisis is more titanic than any other, so if we’re going to do anything about it, we have to doeverything. Most of us won’t put off the pressing needs of our families and communities for something we abstractly understand is going to happen later, and most of us aren’t willing to drop the other pieces of our lives and our movement to do everything, because we already feel like we’re doing everything and barely scraping by as it is. So we deny.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth to this story: The crisis is gargantuan, and it’s getting worse. Ultimately only a fundamental social, political, economic and personal transformation is going to get us out of this mess.

But that’s not the whole story. Climate Armageddon isn’t a Will Smith movie about what happens in 10 years when all hell breaks loose. Climate change is already here: Hurricanes that land on families, rising tides that flood homes, oil spills that drown communities and countless other disasters. These are caused by the same economic and political systems responsible for all the other crises we face — crises in which people are displaced from land, families are ripped out of homes, people lose their jobs, students sink into debt, and on and on.

Defeating climate change doesn’t have to mean dropping everything to become climate activists or ignoring the whole thing altogether. The truth is exactly the opposite: We have to re-learn the climate crisis as one that ties our struggles together and opens up potential for the world we’re already busy fighting for.

Climate moment, not climate movement

In addition to the hurricane were important voices that forced me to confront my denial. Naomi Klein has argued that resisting climate change is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win the world we’ve wanted all along; the proponents of climate change are the same enemies that the Occupy movement and its counterparts around the world have already marked. Vandana Shiva pushes us to see that the intersecting crises of food, climate and economy are all based on a common theme of debt, whileGeorge Monbiot reminds us that the oil profiteering that ruins our climate would be impossible were it not for the insidious relationship between money and politics. These connections mean that the homeowners and activists around the United States putting their bodies on the line to fight foreclosure, the students occupying their universities to fight tuition hikes, the activists fighting for campaign finance reform, the countless who stand up to war — these struggles are our best shot at a climate movement that can really win.

But I learned those same lessons, too, from people in struggle. Farmers in the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement fighting for their land are not so different from the Lubicon Cree in Northern Alberta, Canada, standing in the way of the Keystone XL pipeline that poisons their water, or the residents in Atlanta, Ga., trying to win their homes back from the banks. The working-class white West Virginians resisting fracking are in the same boat as the families in Far Rockaway whose kids’ lungs are infected from living in moldy homes after Hurricane Sandy. They have a lot in common with those in the South Bronx who have been fighting against pollution caused by big business for decades, or the mothers in Detroit who are building urban gardens to cope with food deserts. They’re not so different from the Indian women fighting Monsanto, or those resisting wars fought for oil, and on and on the connections go. We’re all connected by the climate crisis, and the opportunities it opens for us.

The fight for the climate isn’t a separate movement, it’s both a challenge and an opportunity for all of our movements. We don’t need to become climate activists, weare climate activists. We don’t need a separate climate movement; we need to seize the climate moment. Ultimately, our task is to create moments for our various movements that allow us to continue our different battles while also working in solidarity to strike at the roots of the systems beneath the symptoms.

Think Turkey and Brazil. Think Arab Spring, and the uprisings against austerity all over Europe. Think the student movements from Quebec to Chile. Think Occupy. These were collective uprisings that drew lines and demanded that people decide which side they were on. It’s our role to prepare for these kinds of “which side are you on?” moments for the climate by training and practicing, by re-focusing on the issues that connect us, by building institutions that can support us in long-term struggle. We don’t stop our other organizing or drop the many other pieces of our lives; we organize the people with whom we already stand in order to seize these moments when they come — to tell stories, take spaces, and challenge enemies of the climate.

Learning from hurricanes

In the New York City neighborhood of Far Rockaway, climate justice is common sense. What I had only read articles and books about before, I learned a thousand times over from people on the front lines of climate crisis after Hurricane Sandy.

As part of Occupy Sandy and the Wildfire Project, I joined the relief effort, which quickly became an organizing project — training, political education, and supporting the growth of a group that is now active across the Rockaways. Between contesting the city’s vision for a recovery, fighting against stop-and-frisk, and organizing against gentrification, the working-class, multiracial Far Rockaway Wildfire group knows that their task is about more than relief from a hurricane — it is also to deal with the crises that existed before the hurricane, and the systems underlying them.

The fight is about winning back the social safety net that has been slashed by the same economic and political elite that profits from fossil fuels. It’s about the wages that have shrunk as elites have profited, about the jobs working people have lost as the bosses have been bailed out. It’s about ensuring sustainable mass transit so people can get to work. It’s about affordable housing, a need that existed before the storm, made worse now by the threat of disaster capitalist schemes to knock down projects and replace them with beach-front condos. It’s about contesting a political system that uses moments of crisis to further disenfranchise working people and people of color. It’s about overturning an economic system that is wrecking the planet while turning a profit for the most powerful, putting 40 percent of the wealth of this country into the hands of 1 percent of the population. It’s about creating alternatives in our communities, while fighting to make those alternatives the norm.

When you’re out on those beaches in Far Rockaway it’s clear that there isn’t any far-off climate Armageddon to wait for. The hurricanes are already smashing down around us, and they’re the same hurricanes as the ones we have fought all along — systems like capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy that shape one another and all the values and institutions that govern our lives. By fighting those systems, we’re already the seeds of the climate movement we’ve been dreaming of. We only need to overcome our denial, find points of intersection in our struggles, and prepare for those moments in which people finally sit down or stand up in the critical intersections of human history. It won’t be long now.

Blaze at Colville Tribes headquarters appears to be accidental

Source: indianz.com

A fire that destroyed the headquarters of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation appears to have been an accident, The Wenatchee World reported.

The preliminary investigation didn’t turn up anything suspicious, the paper said. The fire apparently started in the basement before spreading to the rest of the building.

Cedar was used throughout the entire structure, which hastened its demise. The headquarters was 40 years old and was built before the tribe updated its fire code.

“Cedar is important to our people, and I understand why it was built from cedar,” Chairman Michael Finley told the paper. “But when you look at it from the perspective of a fire marshal, it may not be the best building material.”

The tribe lost an untold number of official records in the fire.

Michael Connor nominated for top post at Interior Department

Source: indianz.com

Michael L. Connor, a descendant of Taos Pueblo, will be nominated as deputy secretary of the Interior Department.

Connor has served as Commissioner for the Bureau of Reclamation since 2009. He has worked on negotiating and implementing several tribal water rights settlements.

“Mike will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the position after two decades in public service working on energy, conservation and water issues,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in a press release.

“He has proven himself to be a thoughtful and collaborative leader on some of the toughest challenges at the Department – including finding sustainable solutions to water challenges in the West and resolving Indian water rights claims. Interior will be well served by his commonsense approach in the Deputy position.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Connor would be the first Native American descendant in the second-highest ranking post at DOI. He would succeed David Hayes, who left the Obama administration in June.

The Gloves Come Off: Civil Rights Suit Filed as Adoption of Veronica Finalized

Suzette Brewer, Indian Country Today Media Network

Before the adoption of Veronica Brown to Matt and Melanie Capobianco was finalized yesterday in a South Carolina courtroom, the Native American Rights Fund made good on its promised Civil Rights litigation, filing a complaint late Tuesday night in federal district court on behalf of the girl’s right to due process in a “meaningful hearing” to determine her best interest. The courts in South Carolina failed to “take into account or require any inquiry” regarding Veronica’s current circumstances before approving the transition plan provided by Matt and Melanie Capobianco of James Island.

Supreme Court Thwarts ICWA Intent in Baby Veronica Case

Anger Erupts Across Indian Country Over Baby Veronica Ruling

Native American Rights Fund: Stop the Forced Removal of Baby Veronica

Additionally, the suit (V.B. v. Daniel E. Martin, Family Court for the Ninth Judicial Circuit) declares that Veronica is a tribal member and remains an “Indian Child” under the Indian Child Welfare Act, and therefore she “possesses a federally protected right” to a best interest hearing under federal law.

Supported by dozens of tribes, civil rights and child welfare groups, adoption advocacy organizations, legal authorities and Native American groups, the complaint seeks federal jurisdiction over the case, as well as an injunction prohibiting South Carolina courts from further proceedings pending a full and “meaningful” best interest hearing.

Angel Smith, an Oklahoma attorney appointed by the Cherokee Nation to represent Veronica as a tribal member, filed the motion on the girl’s behalf.

The Cherokee Nation reacted swiftly to the finalization of the adoption and transition plan in South Carolina.

“Today, a Family Court in South Carolina finalized the adoption of an almost 4-year-old Cherokee child who has been living with her unquestionably fit, loving, biological father and large extended family, for one year and seven months, half a continent away in Oklahoma and Cherokee Nation,” said Chrissi Nimmo, assistant attorney general for the Cherokee Nation. “This decision was made without a hearing to determine what is in Veronica’s current best interests and comes almost two years after the same Family Court found that Dusten Brown was a fit, loving parent and it would be in Veronica’s best interests to be placed with her father. Every parent in America should be terrified.

Dusten Brown is an honorable man and a good father. Cherokee Nation will continue to support Dusten, Veronica and the entire Brown family in their attempt to keep their family whole.”

Dusten Brown, who is currently in training with the National Guard, also issued the following statement:

“Our family is shocked and deeply saddened that the South Carolina Supreme Court has refused to allow Veronica’s best interest to be considered. Even worse, that Court issued an order they acknowledge will cause my daughter to suffer harm. The Court gave its blessing to the transition plan offered by the Capobiancos that says upon transfer to them, Veronica will be ‘fearful, scared, anxious, confused,’” said Brown.

“They say she will likely become quiet and withdrawn and may cry herself to sleep. That the transfer will cause ‘grief’ and ‘loss’ and she will feel ‘rejected’ by me and her family. They say it will leave her with many ‘unanswered questions.’ I will not voluntarily let my child go through that, no parent would. I am her father and it is my job to protect her. My family and I continue to pray that the justice system bring justice to Veronica.”

But legal experts acknowledged that the fight over custody of Veronica is not only not over, but has now moved into a whole new level of litigation. In spite of South Carolina’s ruling yesterday, enforcement in Oklahoma courts will now be the focus of the case.

“Everything will now move to Washington County, Oklahoma, where Veronica now resides,” said a legal scholar who asked for anonymity because of the ongoing litigation. “But it will require a bit of time for any order to be domesticated in that state. You may have an order from South Carolina, but guess what? Veronica’s not in South Carolina. She’s been domiciled in Oklahoma for 19 months and there’s no way a court in Oklahoma is going to approve enforcement of this order without a normal, legal checklist of things that would be required for any other child up that’s been put up for adoption, not to mention a child who is a tribal member and is living with a biological parent.”

For example, the adoption was finalized without a current homestudy or psychological evaluation of any of the parties involved, which legal and child welfare experts say are standard operating procedures.

“It’s called giving ‘full faith and credit’ to another state’s order,” said the expert. “[The legal team] is going to go into court to argue that full faith and credit should not be given to the South Carolina order because the courts there did not follow the law. And Oklahoma, quite frankly, does not have to give full faith and credit if Veronica’s constitutional right to due process has been denied.”

Additionally, observers say that because jurisdiction has been shifted to Oklahoma, the gloves have now come off in a state that was originally founded as “Indian Territory.” With nearly 40 tribes, including the Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma has the second largest American Indian population in the United States. And they have watched the events in Adoptive Couple unfold in South Carolina with growing alarm and disgust.

“How is it that Paul Clement, who wasn’t even a party in this case, walks into the United States Supreme Court and insults every Indian tribe in the country by making this case about blood quantum and fiercely advocating for a ‘best interest’ hearing, only to have it shot down in South Carolina because the judges there think it’s too hard?” asks one Tulsa lawyer who works exclusively in ICWA cases. “It simply boggles the mind that any court would callously disregard the most important party in this case: Veronica herself. The fight is definitely not over.”

Lori Alvino McGill, the attorney for birth mother Christy Maldonado, today dismissed the federal suit to stop the finalization of the adoption as a “publicity stunt,” as tribes across the country continue to unify in support of Veronica and the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Baby Veronica’s Birth Mother Files Suit, Claims ICWA Unconstitutional

Meanwhile, on Tuesday the Capobiancos filed their response to Dusten Brown’s request to the U.S. Supreme Court that the South Carolina courts postpone finalization of the adoption until a best interest determination hearing could be held. Chief Justice John Roberts, an adoptive parent himself who sided with the majority against Brown, oversees emergency petitions for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes South Carolina.

Sources in Washington have pointed out that Alvino McGill’s role in Adoptive Couple is more than that of a spokesperson for Christy Maldonado. As it turns out, Chief Justice Roberts and former solicitor general Ted Olson, both of whom sided with the Capobiancos, attended Ms. Alvino McGill’s 2006 wedding to Matthew McGill who, coincidentally, was a clerk for John Roberts in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Therefore, given the cozy nature and small world influence in the Capitol’s legal circles, observers say it was no surprise when Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl was granted petition of certiorari in January.

“Dusten Brown never had a chance,” said the source. “His biggest sin was that he got on the wrong side of the billion dollar U.S. adoption industry and he was winning. [The Supreme Court] knew this when they took cert on this case, otherwise, why would they bother with a custody dispute that should have been nipped in the bud four years ago? And the sad part is that he’s rehabilitated himself in every way in this case. He’s gone to every length to keep his child, he’s done everything asked of him. But it is a system that was stacked against him from the beginning. This is Worcester v. Georgia all over again.”

After the South Carolina court’s ruling finalizing the adoption of his daughter, Dusten Brown made a direct plea to the Capobiancos.

“To Matt and Melanie Capobianco I want to say this: Please, for Veronica’s sake, just stop. Stop, and ask yourself if you really believe this is best for her.”